In the face of the euro crisis, questions have emerged about Europe’s cohesion—particularly the strength of the institutions called for under the Lisbon treaty—and what that means for its relevance in major international challenges. But Europe plays a critical role in efforts to stabilize Afghanistan, contain Iran’s nuclear ambitions, and combat global warming.
In a video Q&A Fabrice Pothier discusses the changes going on within Europe and how they will shape its foreign policy and impact its global strength. “Europe’s destiny as a global power is not sealed. The real challenge for Europe—its people and its leaders—is to become more competitive and productive, as the capacity to project power starts at home.”
- Six months after enacting the Lisbon treaty, has Europe become more cohesive?
- Is the European experiment becoming more democratic?
- What role is Europe playing on major global challenges? What lies ahead?
- How has the euro crisis affected Europe’s foreign and security policy ambitions?
- How are Europe’s relations with Russia?
- How is Europe engaging with emerging powers, including China and India?
- Is a split emerging between Europe and Turkey?
- What is the relationship between the European Union and the United States?
- How effectively can Europe respond to international crises?
- Is Europe’s global influence rising or falling?
Six months after enacting the Lisbon treaty, has Europe become more cohesive?
Six months after the implementation of the Lisbon treaty, we are starting to see the shape of its new foreign service—the Europe and External Action Service, which is scheduled to officially launch in the next few weeks. But in thinking of Europe like a new building site, the blueprint is not clear. Lady Ashton, the new high representative for foreign policy, has to create every step.
But if you look at the other European institutions, you do see some change. The European Parliament has become more difficult and demanding, in part because, under the Lisbon Treaty, it has gained a role in deciding on the budget. Although the Parliament is not yet like the U.S. Congress with a system for appropriation, the European Parliament has become a more vocal player in Brussels and the broader European scene.
Then there is also the president of the European Union Council, Herman van Rompuy. This is also a new post but the institutional challenge has been easier for him. Rather than creating an institution from scratch like Lady Ashton is trying to do, van Rompuy has been focused on upgrading an institution. However, over the past few months, there has been a real competition between the post of the EU President and the EU Commission President, Jose Manuel Barroso.
Overall, while Brussels does not yet have its act together, it has become more competitive in terms of people and ideas. But there has not yet been an increase in power and influence. This will come with time, but this is more about a ten-year timeline than the immediate.
Is the European experiment becoming more democratic?
The Lisbon Treaty was born out of a failing democratic system for Europe. It stemmed from the rejection by both French voters and Dutch voters of the European Constitution, the previous incarnation of the Lisbon Treaty. So it was born in a democratic moment but also in a moment where European people said they weren’t ready to support it. The treaty was born out of a crisis of public confidence and the hope was that the Lisbon institutions would be more representative—especially the European Parliament, which was made stronger with a clearer say in the budget decisions made by the Commission and the heads of states.
Democracy has not yet reached the European Union, and this is a key long-term weakness in the construction of the union. Its leaders have not yet built a narrative with the European public and it has not really made itself indispensible. This is partially the result of the ambiguity of the European leaders who, over the last twenty to thirty years, kept blaming Brussels for the bad decisions that the leaders were forced to make at home. But in doing so, they were shooting themselves in the foot because they are the ones who are creating Europe. They are the ones sitting in Brussels, making these decisions—like whether to launch a new round of trade discussions or to create the European External Action Service. So this political game of blaming Brussels when implementing difficult economic reforms at home that has undermined the long-term trust Europeans have in the European construction.
The European Parliament is also a paradox as it has not necessarily created a more democratic system. While people are noting that the institution is more active, it’s not clear yet whether it represents Europeans. Looking at previous European elections over the last twenty years, the level of participation of voters has only decreased. We are now at around forty percent turnout, which actually is lower than in Afghanistan during its presidential elections. So there is a democracy deficit and the question remains whether the Lisbon treaty can make the European Council—the seat of the European heads of state who have been elected—more powerful and more central to the EU’s decision-making process.
Democracy will not necessarily come from the European Parliament. It should also come from the EU heads of state and from their development of a more coherent language about investing in Europe because this it's the continent’s best chance to count in the next ten or twenty years.
What role is Europe playing on major global challenges? What lies ahead?
Europe, the first single market in the world, is a paradox. It is one of the biggest trading partners of major other powers like the United States, China, and India, but Europe feels a sentiment of inferiority—that it is on the decline while the other powers are rising. But Europe has a stake and is involved in all the major issues: global trade, global climate change policy, nuclear proliferation, and the difficult situations in Afghanistan or Pakistan.
Europe’s scorecard on each of those issues is around five or six out of ten. Europe is engaged on global trade discussions, but the system is stuck—the Doha Round has not yet produced an agreement and Europe has a real stake in that. It has not been willing to compromise on, for example, its agricultural policy. Supporting its own farmers keeps the prices high, leaving other producers, especially in the developing world, without access to the European food market. So on global trade, Europe has not yet got its act together.
On climate change, Copenhagen was a moment of truth for Europe. Until then, Europeans thought they could lead by example and that its commitment to reduce carbon emissions by twenty percent in 2020 was compelling enough to bring the other powers like China, India, and the United States on board. But clearly Europe has missed an episode and Europe now needs to play geopolitics on climate. It needs to sharpen its position and make the case that a smart climate policy doesn’t mean making industry less competitive. This issue was seen as one of Europe’s specialties, but we still have a long way to go.
Afghanistan and Pakistan are more traditional security issues. From a European point of view, Afghanistan is lost. The European commitment is already weakening both from the lack of public support and from the unwillingness of European leaders to back up the European commitment work in terms of deploying troops. For example, Germany has deployed the third highest level of troops to Afghanistan, but those troops are in the north of Afghanistan and not allowed to engage in combat.
Europe has a long way to go in being ready for the next Afghanistan—in terms of not only its military personnel, but its development money, and being able to frame public opinion and explain why it matters to be in Afghanistan and why it matters to support Pakistan.
How has the euro crisis affected Europe’s foreign and security policy ambitions?
The euro crisis has had an immediate effect by distracting and creating fear among European leaders who had to deal with the first major institutional economic crisis of the European Union. The euro was considered the one big success, aside from the single market. And this has been deeply shaken by the Greek default crisis and the fact that the euro has reached almost the same point as when it was launched against the dollar ten years ago.
So the crisis has not only undermined the European economy, but also created a contraction of ambition. It has fostered the sentiment that the European construction is not solid and that the foundation needs to be redone. So what can be done? Europe needs a much stronger system in place to manage its economy. Europe had the monetary union, but it was not united in terms of economic governance.
The silver lining in this crisis is that Europe has always gotten better coming out of a crisis. Europe was born out of the ashes of the Second World War in a reaction to the need to reconcile France and Germany in the hopes of creating peace on the European continent. So coming out of the euro crisis, Europe could get better—not necessarily bigger—but better and more focused on what it can do well, especially on the economic side.
How are Europe’s relations with Russia?
Europe and Russia’s relationship is much better than it was after the 2008 Russia–Georgia war. For example, the rapprochement between Russia and Poland is significant in the sense that it heals a rift that was essentially cutting Europe in half. On one side, there were the Russia-friendly western European nations like France and Germany, and on the other sides you had the more skeptical or opposed countries like Poland and the other central European states and the Baltic states. This rift has healed.
It is very important for Europe to have a more coherent approach to Russia. While there are improvements in bilateral relations with Russia, it has not yet translated to a real strategic partnership between Russia and Europe as a whole, as was seen a few weeks ago at the EU–Russia summit in Rostov, which didn’t produce much.
Both sides didn’t really meet the other side’s expectations. The Russians want to reform the visa system and the Europeans wanted Russia to do more on rule of law and protection of private interest—and not much was achieved on that count. A week later President Medvedev and Chancellor Angela Merkel met in Germany for a bilateral summit where some real decisions were made, including setting up a European Security Forum to discuss frozen conflicts between the eastern and western parts of Europe. This was very significant but it was achieved in a bilateral dialogue rather than at the regional level. So there is still a difficulty in translating what has been happening between countries to the level of the European Union’s institution.
How is Europe engaging with emerging powers, including China and India?
In Brussels and the European capitals, the approach is almost as if they are just now discovering that there are emerging powers—as if China and India have just arrived. But really China has been on this trajectory for several decades and India has also been on a path of high-level growth path for probably ten years. But Europe is only now asking itself how it should engage with these countries and what it wants out of the relationship. What is seen then is the tension between trying to overcome relatively good bilateral relationship between, let’s say Paris and Beijing or Berlin and Beijing, into something more strategic for Europe. Europe needs to look at these emerging powers not just as economic powers but as truly global actors.
Accordingly, Europe needs a global strategy—like how to work with China on concerns of nuclear proliferation. The proposed China–Pakistan deal on civil-nuclear technology is very significant and could be seen as a warning sign to Europe and the United States that they need to work together to engage with these emerging powers to ensure they stay within the international system.
But Europe has not yet produced any significant or coherent strategy. The European heads of states are meeting in September to discuss this very issue. But again, they have a long way to go. There is this sense that Europe needs to translate its economic links with China—Europe is the first trading partner of China before the United States—into real political clout or power.
Is a split emerging between Europe and Turkey?
There is a deep, long-term misunderstanding emerging that could indeed threaten relations between Turkey and Europe as a whole. This misunderstanding is the result of Europe missing a whole shift in what Turkey has become over the last ten years since its economic reform in 2001. Turkey has defined itself, or is trying to define itself, as very active in the region. It has used the vacuum that was created after and during the Iraq war where the West—the United States but also Europe—in some ways withdrew or was not welcome anymore in the Middle East. And Turkey has been very skilled at that.
Europe missed this because we defined Turkey through the EU enlargement process, which, while it is officially an ongoing process, it’s going nowhere politically. So in a way Europe had too narrow a lens to really understand what Turkey has become. What is essential is that Europe and the United States work together to engage Turkey and have Turkey play its regional role. Turkey is entitled to have its own trajectory. But what is key is that this trajectory is linked to what the international community and Turkey’s partners—Europe and the United States—also need to achieve.
What is the relationship between the European Union and the United States?
When looking at the depth of the relationship and the extent of the economic, political, and security relations between Europe and the United States, I don’t think there are any other historic examples of such strong relations. But the paradox is that this depth and density does not necessarily translate into an alignment of interests and strategy. And this can be seen on issues across the board.
The United States and Europe don’t see eye to eye on Turkey, for example. On climate change, clearly there is a difference of views and the U.S. politics do not support the way Europeans would like the United States to engage on finding a solution on climate change. Global trade, again, there is more competition here, and our interests are not aligned in finding a solution with the Doha Round. And on the challenge of Afghanistan and Pakistan, there is this paradox of the United States asking Europe to do more, and Europe claiming it is doing more—but in fact they are under-investing politically in trying to sell the mission to their populations.
So there is a real strategy gap between Europe and the United States. And in Europe, where Europe has lost a bit of transatlantic morale, there’s a sense that the transatlantic relationship is no longer defined by European security as it had been for the fifty years during the Cold War. It has to be now defined on a set of global issues where Europe and the United States need to work together—Turkey is one; how to bring China into the multilateral system and play a more responsible role; the global trade discussion; and nuclear proliferation.
But Europe has not yet fully come to term with the fact that transatlantic relationship is not about European security anymore, it’s about the global system.
How effectively can Europe respond to international crises?
There is a contraction of ambition both in Europe and about Europe’s role in the world. But this is happening across the board in the Western world. The United States has also become much more reluctant about whether to engage in new crises apart from Afghanistan and Pakistan.
It’s true that across Europe there is a real decrease in defense investments. The UK is going through its strategic defense review but is already known that they will be cutting their defense budget by twenty-five percent. But it is important to remember that Europe already stopped investing in defense ten years ago. The European defense investment has plateaued since the year 2000. The real increase was in the United States and in the emerging powers. So Europe has underinvested in its security for a good decade.
So it’s true that now we are feeling the effect of this lack of investment which means it’s a real struggle to send troops abroad to respond to crisis like Afghanistan but also other ones—Chad, Congo, Somalia, Yemen. Europe’s capacity to respond to these crises has diminished but it has a sense that it also has a role to play in the world. So there is this tension between not doing enough but knowing it needs to do more in the future.
Is Europe’s global influence rising or falling?
Europe’s destiny is not sealed. In 2050, Europe could easily stay in the top five economic powers, but it could fall and be more in a group of twenty or even below. The real challenge for Europe—its people and its leaders—is to become more competitive and productive, as the capacity to project power starts at home.
This is one of the key points of the new U.S. national security strategy—that you can’t have a strong foreign policy if you don’t have a strong economy and a good demography. So Europe needs to get a better demography, needs to reform its welfare system to support its people but also does not strangle competitiveness. It needs to invest more in innovation and technology.
Europe needs to do more now than what it is, but I don’t think Europe is on the kind of decline that can’t be stopped. We are now in a more relative world where there’s no such a thing as an absolute power. But Europe needs to reform at home to remain a major power in the next twenty or thirty years.